Graeme McDowell carded a one-under-par 69 to put him among the chasing pack
going into the weekend, playing some lovely golf along the way, and most of
it with a broad smile on his face. There was certainly no sign of the
explosion to come when he left the course.

Sand storm: Graeme McDowell labelled some of the bunkers at Royal Lytham as 'dodgy'Photo: GETTY IMAGES

“The golf course is on the edge of unplayable,” he said. “In other parts of the world, if this was a normal tournament some of those bunkers would be GUR’d [whereby players are given a free drop to get out].

"I saw one in particular left of the 16th green, if you hit it in there, there’s nowhere to drop and there’s a foot of water. That’s not golf.

“It’s not fair. A few of these bunkers that are question marks need to be taken out of play. Hopefully they can get them dried out overnight.

“The golf course has remained unbelievably dry considering how much rain we’ve had. The bunkers are a little dodgy in some places, unfortunately.”

The Northern Irishman has a point and it is one others have made. The bunkers have been dug so deep, Geoff Ogilvy seemed to suggest, that they have tapped in to the water table and been topped up by the rain that has fallen persistently over the past two days.

“It’s been as straightforward as we can imagine this golf course to play,” said McDowell. “In practice we were just thinking how many over par is going to win this tournament, and all of a sudden 10 under par is leading it through two rounds.”

Staying out of the bunkers helps and, broadly speaking, McDowell managed that on Friday.

But his round was not without incident, and when he did find the trap at the par-five 11th he could not play his third shot to the green due to the depth and waterlogging in the bunker; ultimately it led to a bogey that clearly still rankles.

Otherwise McDowell, who is in a rich vein of form having been runner-up at the US Open last month, a tournament he won in 2010, was a model of consistency and even the 69 he carded did not do his round justice.

His iron shot from the tee on the par-three ninth hole was particularly deft, landing three feet from the pin for a birdie. At the 12th, another short hole, his tee shot spun back to within three feet of the hole for another birdie, and he frequently made his eight- to 12-foot putts to make his pars.

Now, after an Open record that contains three cuts and no top-10 finishes, the 32 year-old is starting to believe he can transform his fortunes in golf’s oldest major. “There’s no one on the leaderboard that scares me,” he said. “The only person that scares me is myself.

“I’ve got to go out and control my emotions for a couple of days, I’ve got to go out and do my job for a couple of days and hopefully hopefully I’ll come down this last fairway on Sunday with a chance to win the Claret Jug.”

A man who, by his own admission, has no such chance is Lee Westwood. Although he hit a respectable 70, the former world No 1 could not recover any of the lost ground from his three-over-par 73 on the opening day.

So Westwood’s chance of becoming the first Englishman to win this tournament on English soil since Tony Jacklin’s black-and-white triumph way back in 1969 has, by his own admission, gone for at least two years.

“I would say anybody level par or better has got a sniff,” he said. “Shoot 65 tomorrow and the two [leaders] shoot level themselves, you’re four or five down, with a windy day coming [on Sunday].”

Westwood is himself three strokes back from where he assesses he would need to be to win it. He will be 40 before he has the chance to win the Claret Jug again, and although his great mate Darren Clarke won his first Open last year at 42, this is not an ageless game as the defending champion proved by packing his bags last night.

Paul Lawrie’s fate is much more closely aligned to McDowell’s than Westwood’s. He is tied in fifth place alongside the Northern Irishman and, after his opening day 65 dropped only a single shot despite a calamitous turn of events that saw him hit double bogeys at both the 10th and 12th.

After the second of those put him back to three under par he scowled at the ball in his hand and it seemed to exorcise whatever demons were hexing him. At the 14th he had an eagle putt from just off the green but converted the birdie from five feet.

“You’ve just got to keep going,” said the Scot. “It was a good performance to be fair. My head was a wee bit scrambled as you can imagine. I three putted from eight feet [at the 10th]. It’s just a shocker.

“Going down to the 13th my head was a wee bit scrambled. To come out of that and play under par from that point in, it was a good performance. It sets you up and gives you an outside chance at the weekend.”